Spain’s government took a dramatic step in late January 2026 by approving an extraordinary regularisation decree intended to legalise roughly 500,000 people living in irregular situations. The decree fast-tracked by royal order after years of campaigning by migrant-rights groups and support from left-wing parties—offers eligible applicants a one-year residence-and-work permit if they can show they lived in Spain before 31 December 2025, have no criminal record and meet basic administrative checks. Supporters say the measure addresses labour shortages, strengthens social cohesion and recognises decades of informal contribution to the economy; critics argue it was adopted hastily and risks encouraging irregular arrivals.
Almost immediately after the announcement, Spanish authorities noticed an unexpected side effect: a sharp rise in reports of “lost” or “stolen” passports. National police units monitoring immigration and document fraud recorded a large uptick in such declarations in early 2026, and precincts were instructed to carry out more thorough identity and criminal-record checks when someone filed a lost-passport report. Investigators interpret the surge as an attempt by some undocumented residents to create documentary traces of presence in Spain that might support their claim to have been in the country before the cut-off date. Police warnings emphasised that false declarations and document fraud carry criminal consequences.
The regularisation drive has produced long queues outside consulates and immigration offices as migrants scramble to assemble the paperwork demanded by the decree: criminal-record certificates, employment records, rental contracts, and police reports. Images and reports from major cities showed long lines outside the consulate of Pakistan in Barcelona and elsewhere as Pakistani nationals sought police clearances and consular documents required to apply. That visible mobilisation, combined with social-media posts and community networks, has contributed to stories some verifiable, some anecdotal about higher rates of lost-passport claims among Pakistani communities.
Beyond the immediate fraud risk, the phenomenon highlights deeper tensions in any mass regularisation: the demand for documents from origin countries, the vulnerability of newcomers to unscrupulous facilitators and forgers, and the capacity of state institutions to process a sudden influx of applications while safeguarding against exploitation. Spain’s police and migration services have responded by tightening checks and publicly warning migrants against “shortcuts” that could undermine both their applications and public trust in the programme. At the same time, NGOs warn that overly aggressive policing of documentation could push genuine applicants into precarious or clandestine situations.
In political terms, the decree reflects the Sánchez government’s gamble that regularising a large portion of the undocumented workforce will stabilise sectors dependent on migrant labour and anchor newcomers into a taxed, regulated economy. Yet implementation will be crucial: the balance between preventing fraud and facilitating access, and the diplomatic cooperation required from countries supplying criminal-record certificates, will determine whether the policy reduces irregularity or simply reshuffles it. For Pakistani and other migrant communities, the window opened by the decree is both a rare opportunity and a source of urgent, sometimes desperate, activity — lawful when navigated properly, but risky when people resort to falsified reports or intermediaries to meet tight documentary demands.
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